A Forum Research survey finds just over half disagree with Toronto council’s move to extend the ballot to non-citizens.

Just over half of Torontonians polled by Forum Research, a Toronto-based public opinion research company, do not support allowing permanent residents to vote in municipal elections.

Toronto City Council voted in June to ask the province to give permanent residents the right to vote and participate in city elections.

If approved by the province, the new system could be in effect for the 2018 election and would allow an estimated 250,000 non-citizens to vote in the municipal election.

Toronto isn’t the first city to look at offering the vote to permanent residents. Some cities in about 40 countries, including Dublin and Oslo, currently allow non-citizens to cast their ballot municipally.

There are sometimes restrictions: In Oslo, for instance, newcomers must have lived in Norway for three years to be allowed to vote. In New Zealand, everyone is allowed to vote after one year of residency.

But Forum Research’s poll of 3,951 Torontonians found that 53 per cent — or 2,094 people polled — disagreed with the move to allow permanent residents to vote.

Permanent residents made up 6 per cent of those polled (159 people) — a sample considerably lower than their percentage in the population as a whole (15 per cent, according to the Maytree Foundation). Surprisingly, 32 per cent (51 people) of those non-citizens polled also opposed the move, said Lorne Bozinoff, president and founder of Forum Research.

If the province approved municipal voting rights for permanent residents, Bozinoff said it could help someone like Olivia Chow and hurt candidates such as Rob Ford and John Tory.

“The findings of the poll are disappointing, but not surprising,” said Debbie Douglas, executive director of OCASI — Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants — and a supporter of giving permanent residents the right to vote municipally.

“The poll confirms what we know. There’s a lot of public education work we need to do on this issue. Torontonians and Ontarians need to be reminded that folks from the British Commonwealth were allowed to vote right up until 1985, whether they were citizens or not. That over the decades we’ve had to extend the vote to various groups who were excluded for no good reason — women, First (Nations) peoples, Chinese, new Canadians, etc.”

The poll also found that among those who completed the survey in a language other than English — which was about 7 per cent, or 272 people — some 79 per cent were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with how Toronto city services were delivered in their language, while 30 per cent were dissatisfied.

Says Bozinoff: “I think in terms of offering the native-language services there is moderate satisfaction, but still one-third were dissatisfied…If I was grading this they (the city) would get a B minus or C plus.”

Other findings in the poll include:

Half of those polled own houses; 11 per cent own condos. Of this group, 68 per cent were satisfied with the city services they got in return for their taxes. One-third of those polled are tenants.

Seven per cent of Torontonians polled claim First Nations ancestry (220 people), and of these fewer than half think city support services are sufficient. More than one-third disagreed.

Thirty-nine per cent of those polled use transit to go to work or school, while 35 per cent drive. Six per cent walk and 5 per cent cycle.

The majority of drivers — 58 per cent — said they aren’t satisfied with Toronto’s vehicle infrastructure and 29 per cent of those who ride bikes are not satisfied with the city’s bicycle infrastructure.

Only 17 per cent rate Toronto as “excellent” as compared with other North American cities.

Forum Research’s poll was conducted between Aug. 20 and Sept. 1 among a randomly selected sample of Torontonians 18 and older. The margin of error is plus or minus two percent, 19 out of 20 times.

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